【Old General】Son of Denver: Billups

Speaking of Billups, the star point guard, what do you think of first?

Is it his nickname of Mr. Big Shot, or is it his status as the commander during the Pistons' Fab Five period, or is it his slow career, or is it narrowing the scope to the moment when he won the championship in 2004, defeated the Lakers F4, and held the championship trophy and FMVP trophy.

No matter what you think of, one thing is unquestionable, that is, for such a star player with not top-notch statistics, Billups does have a career that many people envy.

In Billups' 17-year career, he has changed seven teams. Putting aside the seven years of the Pistons, Billups can also be regarded as the representative of the league's homeless. This is undoubtedly quite painful for Billups, who is bent on stability.

Among the two most painful departures, one was when he was told that he would be traded from the Pistons to his hometown team, the Denver Nuggets; and the other was when he was ruthlessly sent to New York by his old club after expressing his desire to stay in Denver.

The NBA is still a business league after all. For Billups, this sentence cannot be more profound.

Billups is a son of Denver with pure blood. He attended George Washington High School in Denver and attended the University of Colorado in college. He already showed his strength during high school and college, and his reputation spread to all parts of Denver early, and even became famous throughout the American basketball world. This also allowed him to be selected by the Celtics with the third overall pick in the 1997 draft, officially starting his NBA career.

In the early days of his career, Billups' performance was not worthy of his selection, but his relatively mediocre performance still made him become the team's trading chip again and again. In the first season of his career, he was sent to the Raptors by the Celtics in a seven-player trade. When the season ended, he returned to his hometown team: the Denver Nuggets.

For Billups, who returned to his hometown for the first time, it really surprised the hometown fans. No one expected that the son of Denver could return to his hometown team in such a short period of time. In 1998, the Nuggets were at the bottom of their reconstruction. Billups' return was undoubtedly one of the few things that made the Nuggets fans happy.

But even though he subsequently averaged 14 points, 4 assists and 1.3 steals per game, Billups, who was troubled by injuries the following year, still failed to enter the Nuggets' reconstruction blueprint, and was subsequently traded to the Magic. However, due to injuries, Billups was not able to play in any game for the Magic that season.

In the blink of an eye, 10 years later, Billups is no longer the parallel import prospect who was ridiculed by the media. After experiencing the rise of the Timberwolves, he fought against the Lakers in 2004. At this time, he already holds the championship and FMVP honors. Relying on his excellent defense and three-pointers, he has become synonymous with the league's star point guard with both offense and defense.

But in the eyes of the Pistons executives, they believe that the glory of the Pistons is in the past. Although they have always maintained the top four results in the Eastern Conference, with Ben Wallace and many old players leaving the team, the Pistons need to usher in new changes. The first one to be affected is naturally Billups, who was criticized by the team for not playing hard enough, and there are newcomers behind him waiting to take over.

In the end, in 2008, the Pistons used Billups and McGrady as bargaining chips to trade to the Nuggets for Iverson, who still had star influence at the time.

The relationship between the five Pistons has always been well known. When Hamilton and Prince learned that Billups had been traded, the two rushed to the hotel where Billups was staying. Then several people chatted in the room about every detail of the six years. As they chatted, the three of them even shed tears.

"This was definitely the hardest three hours in my long life. We all couldn't believe it was over like this. It was the hardest part of this whole deal, because no matter what, I was leaving Detroit."

Billups was still full of emotions when he later recalled the situation that day.

Before being traded, Billups had just received a promise from the team's general manager Dumars, stating that the team would not trade him, but the final reality was completely different.

With the four o'clock flight that day, Billups said goodbye to the city that carried his past glory, and returned to his starting point again, even though all this was never part of his plan.

Returning to Denver, Billups is no longer the young man seeking opportunities, but a battle-hardened veteran.

As a player who can be trusted by both Ben Wallace and Rashad Wallace, he immediately gained the trust of coach George Karl as soon as he landed in the Nuggets, and he even tamed several young Nuggets boys. Although they also lost a scoring machine who averaged 20+ per game in this transaction, they were replaced by a defensive pivot, a more stable backcourt shooter, and a backcourt commander who is difficult to replace.

The arrival of Billups has led to a qualitative change in the Nuggets' defensive system. The veteran who is solid in single defense and does not often gamble on steals has made the team no longer need the unlimited help of long inside players as before. It also allows Martin and Nene to focus more on individual defense, which they are good at. More importantly, Billups completely liberated Anthony's offense, allowing him to shoot in more of his favorite sweet spots, which to a certain extent made up for the vacancy left by Iverson.

The offense remains the same, but the defense has risen by many levels. This is the biggest change for this team after Billups arrived.

In addition to the seamless integration of Billups, the team also acquired high-quality defensive green leaves such as Chris Anderson and Dengta Jones, making the Nuggets in the 2008-09 season a golden lineup recorded in team history..

This lineup eventually entered the playoffs with first place in the Northwest Group and second place in the Western Conference, successively defeating the New Orleans Hornets and Dallas Mavericks with a big score of 4-1. Especially in the series with the Hornets, Billups suppressed Chris Paul, who was gaining momentum at the time, as the big brother. Although this did not prevent Paul from entering the ranks of the league's first-tier guards in the future, in front of Billups, the little brother had to wait a little longer if he wanted to take over.

Finally, they met the champion Lakers in the Western Conference Finals. The first four games were inseparable, and they even lost two games by just one goal. However, they still failed to advance. This was the only time the Nuggets during the Anthony era broke through the first round.

After losing in the 2009 playoffs, even though the Nuggets were still a championship contending team the following year, being eliminated in the first round again brought the fate of Anthony and the Nuggets to an end. In the end, the prospect asked to leave the team in the 10-11 season. The Nuggets general manager Masai Ujiri at the time could only start planning a deal, and there were many buyer teams interested in Anthony at that time.

But compared to Anthony's thoughts on leaving the team, Billups, who returned home for the second time, did not want to leave the city where he grew up. He told the team many times in private that he did not want to leave and wanted to retire in this city; and if the Nuggets trade him, he will directly negotiate a buyout with the new owner.

Although he became famous in the Motor City, everything around Billups smells of Colorado. His wife is a classmate of Washington High School, his parents and children are all here, and the fans here have a special affection for him.

But all of this seemed incomparable to the future of the Nuggets in Ujiri's eyes. In the end, Billups was sent to the big city of New York along with Anthony in a three-team deal.

Faced with the tragedy of being sent away by his old club after confessing his true feelings, Billups seemed to be gradually heartbroken. This also made him publicly prohibit other teams from bidding for him when he was later pardoned by the Knicks. At that time, Billups was already at the end of his career, but he boldly decided to choose the team he wanted to go to. If he was bid by a team that was unwilling to go, he would choose to retire without hesitation.

With a tough attitude, Billups dissuaded those teams that wanted to take advantage of his final value. In the end, he chose to serve as Paul's substitute with the Clippers. In 2013, he returned to Detroit, where he had made his glory, and ended there as a Motor City player.

Looking back on Billups' career, he didn't play for the Nuggets for a long time, and this is not a place that can truly represent him, but in some ways, Denver may be another city with the deepest connection with him.